I didn’t used to obsess about productivity. Friends were welcome to get all wrapped up in methodologies for being more productive; I was getting things done just fine, thanks. I had an excellent memory, and seldom forgot to do what needed to be done.

Then I started getting older. I’d leave small tasks lying around, only remembering them when I re-found them or they blew up loudly in the corner.

Even that wasn’t enough to push me over the edge. Sure, I signed up for Remember the Milk, but I put tasks in it like an old man erratically handing out coins to his grandchildren. Otherwise I went on as I had before, mainly relying on memory and the kindness of others.

But then came the iPhone. Oh, goodness, what a difference having a computer in your pants can make. I started using Remember the Milk — really using it, instead of dabbling in it. I found how to create saved smart searches, a crazy feature that only crazy people really need. Then I realized I also wanted to note down random web pages that I wanted to look at later, as well as snippets of blog posts and random thoughts and, oh, hell, why not sign up for Evernote to remember all of this for me?

Wait: what if I’m driving and a particularly clever thought zips its way through my brain? I can’t type and drive at the same time? But I can talk and drive, as Misty will tell you while rolling her eyes. So I signed up for reQall, which has an iPhone app to transcribe voice to text.

I haven’t yet set up 43 folders to dump stuff into, and Lifehacker isn’t in my Google Reader subscriptions. But if I graph my use of productivity tools as a function of time, I should reach the productivity singularity in early 2010, at which point I will be so productive that I have no time to do anything.